Resisting the Temptation to Let Victim Ego Rule

photo credit: eschipul

In Chris­tian­ity, we often hear about the impor­tance of resist­ing temp­ta­tion. Often we think this means to resist way­ward desires or lusty thoughts, and these are cer­tainly one form of temp­ta­tion we face. But for many of us, how­ever, the temp­ta­tions we face are of a totally dif­fer­ent type. The temp­ta­tions we must resist are the ones we face daily on the path of con­scious­ness by over­com­ing the temp­ta­tion to lapse into old famil­iar vic­tim thoughts, opin­ions and beliefs. What we face on the path to free­dom from Vic­tim­hood is the temp­ta­tion that tests the “pos­ses­sions” held by our per­son­al­ity selves.

Let me give an example:

I was in the kitchen, tidy­ing up at the end of a long day. I was sleepy and eager to ‘hit the sack’ but wanted to get things in order before retir­ing for the night. My hus­band walked by on his way to bed, and said, “By the way, the dishes in the dish­washer are clean, I didn’t have time to put them away today.”

I had to hold my tongue to keep from blurt­ing out the neg­a­tive words, “Yeah, what else is new, you always leave the dishes for me to put away!” I was SO tempted to say those words out loud; for­tu­nately, I resisted. The saner part of me rec­og­nized those words were com­ing from my vic­tim ego, that part of me that always looks for evi­dence of how unfairly I am being treated.

These are the kinds of temp­ta­tions we often face in the process of free­ing our­selves from a vic­tim men­tal­ity. We must resist the temp­ta­tion to react from unhappy thoughts and beliefs that only serve to cre­ate more disharmony.

Because I resisted the temp­ta­tion to give in to my own vic­tim story, I was able to avoid the down­ward spi­ral that giv­ing in to such temp­ta­tion pro­duces, a spi­ral that would most likely have led to out­ward dishar­mony between my hus­band and I. And, resist­ing that temp­ta­tion allowed me to move more quickly into a state of grat­i­tude for a hus­band who loads and runs the dish­washer, instead of crit­i­ciz­ing my good helper!

Resist­ing the temp­ta­tions of a vic­tim ego that wants us to believe and react to our unhappy thoughts is a form of test­ing that strength­ens us on the path to higher con­scious­ness and freedom!

May you find the resolve to resist the temp­ta­tion to let your vic­tim ego run your life!